Order to shoot that wounded the Raj

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Indians have been waiting almost a century for the British to apologise for the massacre in Amritsar. All the signs are that they will have to be patient for some years yet.

The Queen, visiting the Jallianwala Bagh memorial in 1997, spoke of regret and sadness; David Cameron has described it as shameful. But “sorry” remains elusive because it would acknowledge the moral shortcomings of British efforts to keep its empire together by force.

Nowhere was this force quite as naked as in Amritsar on an April afternoon in 1919. Revolt had been in the air for months and the